Young Writers Society

Carl sliced his broadsword through a tree trunk. Surprisingly, it was a relaxing action, so Carl repeated it, cutting down swaths of the rough bark.

The morning was approaching. It would almost be time for a Black piece to move.

"Who will it be?" asked Carl to the air, even though all of the Black pieces could read each other's minds from long distances.

Despite the sun not having risen, Reverend Holly was already awake. She had already been awake for at least two hours, before many of the other Black members had awoken. The previous game, she had learned waking early could spare a bit of silence, without the minds of her companions chattering in her head through their long-distance telepathy. It got bothersome. At least waking up a few good hours before the sun rose meant that Holly could have some peace.

And train in mental silence.

She thrust one of her swords into a pillow she’d nailed to the wall of her bedroom just a few minutes before. Then, without hesitating, she leapt and kicked the pillow with both feet, landing cleanly and softly, then dodging an imaginary sword slice before slashing at the pillow again.

Smirking, Holly stepped back. The pillow, now neatly cut in half, had exploded feathers all over the place. The bottom half dropped to the floor with a thump.

It was the third pillow she’d destroyed that morning. Despite the waste, it was just so fun to slice them in half, slash at and kick against them. Holly didn’t think of herself as bloodthirsty, but the engagement she felt while fighting was thrilling. Even if she was just fighting against an inanimate pillow.

It would be much more fun with a sparring partner, someone capable. Sadly, no one had pledged themselves to Holly yet, so no one could be trained. The last game, at least five people had pledged themselves to her and were her companions across the board. They had been pretty good company, most of the time. Good punching dummies, too.

Holly sighed and sheathed her two swords. Time to clean up the mess she’d made. For the third time.

Hey? Hello? Who’s gonna move this time?

Ugh. So starts the barrage of telepathic talking, Holly thought dryly, projecting the words mentally to the rest of the Black members. The person who had sent the first telepathic thought might have been the other Black Bishop, or maybe that quirky female pawn that always piped up. That pawn was... surprisingly capable. A pipsqueak, but if she fought well, who cared?

Holly didn’t care enough to project her mind and find out who had pitched the first thought. Whatever messages were projected telepathically to her, she would accept and respond to in kind, but she didn’t just go and read her fellow members’ thoughts all the time. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about them—she did, technically. She just didn’t necessarily care about everything they were thinking.

Sarah stood at the brink of her territory, staring into the distance towards the other side, she had helped her village during the day and now the sun was going down. Even though she knew she was safe for at least one more day and couldn’t move till the pawn in front of her could, she wouldn’t let her guard down. One young man had pledged himself to her soon after she had re-awoken. She liked him, he was serious. He could be of help. He was back a ways setting up camp outside the village. Sarah ran through the discussion that murmured through her head like a persistent stream, strategizing with the pawns or something. She let it flow on as she walked back to camp and greeted the young man with compliments on the camp, she settled down next to the fire and fell asleep to the voices in her mind.

In a hall leading from the throne room of his palace, torchlight flickered against the stone walls as Amir sat hunched over a black and white board on which two sets of pieces lined both ends. Slowly, he moved several out and into the centre of the board, gazing at each with a discerning eye.

In his head, the storm of voices bickered and fought. Now was the time to move, but who?

No piece had been taken yet, the beginning of the game was always the loudest, with nearly every piece eager to voice their idea, making it all the more difficult to block out.

Groaning, Amir massaged his forehead, a large crown wrought in gold resting heavily on his brow. He examined the board once again, before stretching forwards to slide a pawn two spaces away from its initial position.

E7, his voice cut through the tumult, finally bringing silence to his mind, move ahead to E5.

Yes sir, came the reply.

After that, the chatter began to die down; the move had been decided. It wasn’t a major move, a game-changing move, nothing like that by any means. The game was still young, Amir thought to himself, there were still many things to happen.

Jay grimaced as the tendril of thorns curled tighter around his leg, the points pressing through his clothing to spike against his skin. Ok, maybe walking hadn’t been the best idea.

Behind him, he heard Kitty snort and stamp at the thorns as they stretched dangerously up towards her snowy, feathered wings. She beat them up and down, rising in the air for a few moments before touching down again beside him. Already, the thorns were twisting around her hooves, trying to catch hold.

She knocked her velvety nose against Jay’s shoulder as he pulled out a slim, gleaming sword from a scabbard at his side.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” he said hacking at the newest onslaught of tendrils, “let’s go. Obviously, the world doesn’t like it when a knight and his Pegasus just want to go for a casual stroll.”

Pulling himself onto Kitty’s back, she beat her wings and they were soon in the air. Glancing down, Jay frowned. He hadn’t even made it halfway to the next territory.

The day had started out the same way any other day did on this godforsaken board. The opponent had moved - nothing very exciting - and the rest of the otherwise lovely morning had been ruined by the echo of a dozen voices bouncing around Jay’s head at any given moment. Still, at least everything had settled down by lunchtime when he’d had some real thinking to do.

It was only when evening set in that the barrage started up again, a fair bit of it directed at him. As a knight, the occasional wanna-be strategists of the party always urged him to use his advantage and leap over the line of pawns. And as an especially noble knight with a heart yearning for the freedom of the open sky Jay would happily comply, even if he hadn’t been asked. So, just as the sun dipped its head beneath the tree line, Jay had strode confidently out into the world on his own two feet.

Sure, he knew the King, Queen and entire monarchy would throw a fit at him moving without instruction, but as he had told them many times over “the nights coming so this knight’s going,” before flying off. He was gradually getting better at tuning out their yelling though the headaches were still unbearable.

Technically, he wasn’t meant to walk - he hadn’t woken up with a Pegasus nudging at his side for nothing - but he liked to mix things up a bit. Big mistake. Barely 5 minutes later he’d been knee-deep in thorns. The board, it seemed, didn’t like it when he tried to bend the rules.

Settling in between the steady beats of Kitty’s two ginormous wings, Jay let his gaze wander over the land spreading out beneath him. A forest stretched for miles below, interspersed with pockets of sparse meadows and valleys, as well as the occasional town peeking through in a grid-like pattern. Squinting against the setting sun, one particular cluster of buildings caught his attention, where one particular person had just stepped out into the closing day.

Digging into his pocket, Jay grinned as pulled Kitty off course in a slow swoop towards the town. Just as he dipped beneath the tree line Jay threw the small pebble in his hand, cackling with laughter as he saw it hit the reverend.

Unfortunately, he was unable to hear what new stream of insults she would throw back at him this time as a strong gust of wind wheeled him and Kitty back on course. Like with walking, the board wanted you to keep moving the way you were meant to. No sense of fun at all.

Jay reigned Kitty in for a small descent into a quiet little town just below him when he saw something… odd. In the next-door territory, a white pawn had just moved in. The pawn had moved while he was moving.

“Huh,” said Jay.

"E5?" exclaimed Carl, slamming his blade into the ground, "Idiots! They'll just do the Sicilian Defense. We had to fight that last time and it wasn't pretty!"

He groaned, but it was no use-- the pawn had already moved.

"What shall we do next?" complained Carl.